


The Plague

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Affection, Amputee Armitage Hux, Caring for injured Hux, Distopian, Fluff, M/M, Plauge AU, Rescued, Romantic love, Sickfic, black death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 17:05:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A disease spreads across worlds while the First Order struggles to keep it at bay amongst its ranks. In desperation, the Order resorts to taking down its own ships suspected of containing carriers of the Black Death. (Told from the point of view of Poe Dameron as he searches among the wreckage for survivors, finding General Hux)





	The Plague

I heard his echoing screams through the corridors. The voice was familiar to me, yet I did not recognize it as his, not while fear had made my heart pound in my chest. I believe that this familiarity was what drove me onward, all the while knowing that I was upon a fatal fool’s errand. This is what I had chosen, against all entreaties.

After all that I had witnessed, I held onto the conviction that humanity was found when one crosses the line between enemy and ally. I needed to do something, I needed to see with my own eyes to know that these graveyards of ships where filled with dead men. 

Something called me to search past the sparks which flew from severed wires, while the sirens blared in my ears and the lights flashed red in warning. I crept and crawled and felt the blood in my veins surge with the adrenaline that accounted for my courage or foolhardiness. I did not know who I was searching for, I was only aware that the voice had gone silent and this frightened me. I wondered if it was too late for them, I imagined that I saw Finn in the obscurity, I gave the figure his face and his body and this urged me to run faster.

I pushed open the heavy doors which separated me from the dark passageway, stepping over bodies, removing their helmets, checking their pulse. I moved forward, most were dead, some on the brim of death. I did not know what to do, whom to save, how to save them – there were too many, they seemed too far for me to bring them back into life. I wondered if I had come in vain, that my resolve was not strong enough.

I had not the skills to heal them, nor the will to carry them one after another, for I could not choose among these soldiers scattered like discarded marionettes. Their expressions were vacant and senseless, it was too late. I told myself that it was too late and continued moving onward through the labyrinthine halls of the First Order ship like a lost delirious wanderer, only seeing that it was filled with death and destruction.

It was like the skeleton of something which had decayed from within, only its shell remained, giving the illusion that there was something alive within. Every man and woman which slouched and seemed to sleep carried the sickly odor of the Plague, odious and wretched, unbearably infusing into my despairing heart. I longed to hold my breath, to hold it for as long as I could so as not to inhale the rank air which seemed to thickly permeate the chambers of the spacecraft. The darkness and useless warnings of red set the ambiance for such scenes as I beheld. There was nothing that I could do.

I saw that there were some who lay groaning and I am ashamed to confess that I hesitated to approach them, for they seemed to be no longer human, but something more potent and deadly that would grasp at me and pull me into the same misery within which it still resided. Until the last breaths of life left its parched throat it remained there looking upon me and all of my fears urged me to run. After this incident, I prepared myself, stirring the will to kneel down beside these ghoulish faces of deformity, and only then did I fully realize that I was mistaken in coming to these halls of the damned. I was taken by the certainty that soon, I too would lay down amongst them. I did not know from whence I could find the courage.

I wondered if this was their punishment for cruelty, for destruction, for inhumanity, yet this – this disease, it was cruelty and inhumanity itself, and I could not wish it upon any man without filling my dreams with nightmares.

Then, I found him amid the rubble – General Hux. His lower body was crushed beneath the weight of something that I could hardly distinguish in the dark. A part of the ship had fallen upon his legs and he was trapped in place like an animal in a snare. I knew not if he was still alive, nor whether I would be able to lift the weight off of him, yet the recognition of the face of the general struck me with the sense that what had been done was the act of one who was out of time. The First Order was powerless to fight it and its leader had taken to amputating its limbs, as the Plague moved closer and closer to the heart. 

I knew what I had to do, I knew that I would do it for him. I wanted to discover what would become of him, if I could save him. Would he be grateful? Would he curse me? I could not tell which feelings throbbed within him but for the searing pain of his crushed limbs. I had to hurry, seeing the amount of blood which surround him, drenching is uniform.

To make an imperious man my dependant, to force him to live as one who could not so much as stand without me, who owed his every breath to me – I was not conscious of these desires at the time, yet the dark side of my heart believed it was for these reasons that I chose to save Armitage Hux amid the other souls who grasped for life. The nameless sufferers who I did not rescue haunt me still, but I know that I could not have done otherwise, as one man who had chosen to go against reason and precaution, I understood the limits of my strength.

I would not be misunderstood; I had not grown tired of life, yet neither did I fear death, if only I could die nobly and make him mine.

This proud creature that lay at my feet. While his face still bore the final signs of agony I knew that there was hope. If I were to let him die, it would be a slow death, ministering to his every need, watching his every breath, listening to his heart beat. I took out my tools and my jaw clenched tightly while I carried out the procedure of cutting away the damaged flesh which connected him to the deadweight limbs, the bones which had been turned to dust by the weight which had fallen upon them. It was horrific to recollect this and so I need not describe it further, only that I was able to staunch the bleeding and stitch up the wounds with the efficiency of training.

While I did this, I heard him howl in pain and then faint from the same agony, more than what any mortal mind and body could bear. I remember when I first saw him there on the floor; his eyes had been wet with tears from the pain. I wonder if that is why I had chosen him, imaging that he had cried for me, in hope and in loneliness. Yet there was no time to reflect, to question myself and my motives – I lifted him off of the ground, cradling the strange figure in my arms and retracing my steps down the corridor. I pressed his cold body close to me and I thought I saw his eyes faintly open, his arms wrap around me as though to keep me from dropping him. He felt like a child then or some kind of faerie, a man of an elfish race, hardly a man.

The disease had spread throughout the ship and a pang of fear crossed the sentiments of my heart. If I wished to cling to life I ought not to hold this body against mine, but perhaps it was all too late now – to have so much as breathed the air within the vessel of decay may have been enough to deal the death stroke upon me. Yet this too only served to persuade me of the correctness of my decision, if it was too late then I would die having endeavored to save him, this cold beautiful man.

When I reached the cavernous opening through which I had entered, I breathed deeply of the open air, pausing only to examine more closely the state of Armitage Hux. Indeed he was as I had imagined him in the dark. Pale with sickness or blood loss, his body permanently changed, crippled and helpless.

Returning to my comrades, I was given a cold welcome, for they were understandably frightened of the demise which I might have brought to our ship. I was put into quarantine and so was the burden which I had carried. The only request that I allowed myself to make was to be permitted to remain with him. With reluctance, they acquiesced. They knew my character to be determined and immovable, therefore few words were wasted in attempting to persuade one who had ventured into the valley of death.

I could feel that there was a different aura about me: that of the leper.

I did what none among them would do. I know that it was of little consequence to save this one man, if that is what I had done in truth; it was too soon to say if he would live, or if his mind or body should refuse to remain with me in this life.

All that I could do was watch the lights and graphs of the machines, monitoring his vitals and admiring the peacefulness which had fallen over his elegant features.

I could admire them all in detail while observing the changes that had been wrought since I had last seen him during times of war; his pronounced sunken cheekbones, his bluish lips, a scar upon his cheek – yet of these marks he would be healed if he lived, in time he would gain strength, so I told myself. I worried, I knew not why, that he would reject his body in its changed state, the aspects which could not be undone – that which the blanket covered but poorly. Would he be content to live as half a man?

Moreover, would he scorn to be bound to me? Would he decided that he had no need for my kindness – or was it cruelty, selfish cruelty to have saved him?

To keep him here, like a pet or a plaything, here among his enemies. Yet who were his companions – among the lifeless bodies aboard the ship? or with his masters, who had sacrificed him thus? I would collect every justification that I could find, if only I might find one that would suffice to dispel my foreboding until his eyes should open and his lips should move to tell me how it would be.

I did what only a fool would do, not caring what was seen by the lens of the camera which looked into the coldness of the room. I laid myself down beside him, gently wrapping my arms around his thin frame. I wanted to share with him my warmth and my life. I kissed his lips, half believing that this would cause him to awaken before my eyes, drinking in the Black Death. I cared not if it was so, if I could only descend with him into one grave. This half-human creature, little more than a torso and a motionless face, was it still General Hux?

I spent the night beside him, drifting into feverish sleep, and when I awoke I saw his bright eyes looking upon me, afraid to move. His sudden coughing woke me and I could only smile, so glad I was that he had not departed from me and from this life, merciless as it has been to him. I pressed him closer to me and he did not resist, whether in weakness or in submission, I knew not, yet I wished to believe in my fair dream. My hands lightly brushed his hair, soft and lovely, there was also a sweetness in the scent of his skin as I inhaled deeply while kissing his neck. I would always be gentle with him until the day that we died together. No words had been spoken between us since I carried him to the place that was my home. A part of me wished for it to remain thus always, for there was danger in speaking.

I did not desire more than what I had then, simply holding him in my arms, and I hoped that would be the way in which we would both close our eyes for the eternal sleep that the Plague brought with it. I knew that he was in much pain, yet he looked at me with a tenderness that I had only seen in dreams.

His slender fingers intertwined with mine and I felt myself at peace. In the morning they would drape us with white sheets and carry away the robes that had been over our spirits for too long. I would soar in the sky with him, my dear friend. If we bore any shape, it would be the shape of birds.


End file.
